Mahatma Gandhi

was many things. He was a son, a husband, a lawyer, but he was admired worldwide as a great social reformer, political leader, and thinker. Through a unique method of nonviolence, he won civic rights and eventually independence for India’s people.
Mahatma was born Mohandas K. Gandhi in 1869 in Porbandar, India. He lived there until 1888, when he left to study law at University College in London. In 1891, after having been admitted to the British bar, Gandhi returned to India and attempted to practice law in Bombay with little success. Two years later an Indian firm with interests in South Africa hired him as a legal advisor in its office in Durban. This changed his life.
In ...

Want to read the rest of this paper?Join Essayworld today to view this entire essayand over 50,000 other term papers

the South African authorities. For this, Gandhi coined the term Satyagraha, a Sanskrit word meaning truth and firmness. In 1914, the government of the Union of South Africa made important concessions to Gandhi’s demands including recognition of Indian marriages and abolition of poll taxes for them. With his work in South Africa complete, he left for Britain in 1914.
When Gandhi arrived in India in 1915, he was welcomed as a hero. Gandhi’s writings and devout life won him many Indian followers. They followed him in his campaign for swaraj or “home rule”. He worked to reconcile all classes and religious sects, especially Hindus and Muslims. In 1919, he became a leader in the newly formed Indian National Congress political party. In 1920 he launched a noncooperation campaign against Britain, urging Indians to spin their own cotton and boycott British goods, courts, and government. This, lead to his imprisonment from 1922 to 1924. In 1930, in a protest of ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays.Write better papers. Get better grades.